Hello Pepper Pals:
Someone was kind enough to mail me some pink oyster mushroom mycellium recently, and told me I could grow them in a jar with nothing but coffee grounds and filters!!!
: O
Here are shots of my pink oyster mushroom mycelium, and how I was instructed to begin this whole process...
First I made a pot of coffee and let the grounds sit for a couple hours while I sterilized the wide-mouth jar you see below, in boiling water - the lid too. I sterilized a pin in a flame, so I could push the pellet of agar and living fungus out of the plastic shipping bubble and into the jar - onto the coffee and filter. Then I closed the jar lid loosely and placed it in my dark cupboard - because it doesn't need light until it's time to fruit.
As you can see in the 2nd pic below, the white fuzz is beginning to grow. This is what I was told would happen, and that I must wait until the fungus spreads over the entire layer of coffee and filter, before adding another fresh layer.
You keep adding layers of fresh coffee grounds and filters, until you reach the top of the jar and the entire container is fully colonized with the culture. How very cool.
Then you take off the lid, and place a flimsy baggy ove the top, like the kind in the produce section, which keeps the humidity up and allows gas exchange. I am told I will be in mushrooms a week from this point!!!
: O
I will continue to show pics as this process continues, but I am very nervous and have never done anything like this before. The person who sent me the fungus is helping me though, so I feel somewhat confident.
We'll see...
: )
